With all the news about their upcoming album, I figured that this week would be a good time to cover Biffy Clyro in our Off The Beaten Track feature. They’re a band I was massively into around the time I finished my first year of A-Levels, thanks to a good friend forcing me to listen to them because there was apparently no way I wouldn’t like them. I think as far as my taste in music has gone, this moment was as important to me as the time I heard a recording of Oceansize covering Cardiacs, and I became a slightly obsessive fan around the time Infinity Land came out, buying up the older singles and, even as my attention to the band has dwindled slightly, keeping up to date with all the singles in whatever format they get put out on.
In recent times, I think quite a few of the B-Sides actually trump some of the album material, and some of the older songs were classics in their own right. So without further ado, here is my rundown of the top 7 Biffy Clyro B-Sides
Hope For An Angel (From 57)
I don’t think it’s possible to have a list of Biffy B-Sides and not include this song. B-Side to 57, Hope For An Angel. I remember reading/hearing an interview a few years back when the band mentioned that they wish they had put it on Blackened Sky so that they could play it live more often, but in recent years it’s made a bit of a comeback, playing it at the Roundhouse and Leeds in the last few days. It went down well with the few of us who knew it at their Royal Albert Hall gig last year, prompting small singalongs and some bemused audiences faces (at least the audience was quiet for the quiet bits though!)
A Headline (From Folding Stars)
The end of this was weirdly used in the promotional video for Puzzle, despite it not making it onto the album in the end it set the tone for the album quite well. The main part of the song is fairly typical Biffy Clyro, a high pitched guitar riffs, met with steady drumming and held together by the bass before a guitar line not dissimilar from earlier songs with their sharp delivery. The highlight of the song though has to be the outro, the lyric “it’s hip to be square” repeated multiple times with a slow building set of chords, it’s simple, but I remember hearing this on the album trailer and thinking “yes! This is going to be awesome.”
…And With The Scissorkick Is Victorious (From The Ideal Height)
Probably the best Vertigo Of Bliss era B-side, Scissorkick has so many parts to it for you to get your head around that it’s definitely, with a guitar lead intro, followed by a second distorted intro part, before the song moves to a conventional clean sounding verse, before distorting and never really coming back down. The ending repetitive line of “Why would you bow down? Would you, would you stay, stay a while for..?” is one of the most memorable Biffy lyrics for me (and let’s be honest, they’re all gold).
Being Gabriel (From Justboy)
A bit of a calm song until the massive climactic end, Begin Gabriel is one of the longer B-sides, more lyrically based with a simple backing. The verses are pretty great, and I’m very fond of the lyric “No one will be more loved than him, Cause he’s caught by the safest of hands. If he cries tears will be wiped away, By the ones who created this man.”
Miracle Of Survival (From Saturday Superhouse)
With an unusual intro which sounds a bit out of place as a Biffy song, the chorus chords are hard hitting, with the song moving between noisy distorted guitar and pop guitar verses. It’s another song with a huge heavy epic ending, which I would love to be able to hear live.
Time As An Imploding Unit/Waiting For Green (From 57)
The longest Biffy b-side, effectively two separate songs in one, even the intro is over a minute long. It contains quite a lot of instrumental parts, given that Time As An Imploding Unit only has one short verse followed by a huge build up before the song changes to Waiting For Green and everything calms down a bit. Waiting For Green is more lyrical, starting with the great line “I am waiting for an answer to, all the lies they told to try and spoil you.” A song that is about growing up and memories of the past, the song ends in yet another huge ending full of distorted guitar and shared vocals.
All The Way Down, Chapter Two (from Toys, Toys, Toys, Choke, Toys, Toys, Toys / Joy.Discovery.Invention)
Weirdly, this was released before Vertigo Of Bliss’s Prologue/Chapter 1, and should really be treated as a separate entity. The song is a lot heavier than the Vertigo track, although the chorus will be familiar to those only familiar with the albums, although unlike the fantastic slow building Prologue/Chapter 1 this is hard hitting straight away. I mean, it’s not as good as the Vertigo track, but it’s still one of the best B-sides, in my opinion. This song also features in a slightly different version on EP Iname.
And finally, while technically not a b-side, I felt it was impossible to be talking about non-album tracks and not mention the wonderful cover of Weezer’s Buddy Holly (from a Kerrang cover CD), which was done at a time where cover didn’t mean a simple like for like version. This track is filled with riffs and odd timed drums, with only the lyrics and structure staying true to the original. The middle section is basically just the band enjoying themselves, and is one of my favourite Biffy Clyro moments on any release. The outro is one of the heaviest things they had done before the more recent material too, which, when mixed with odd timed drums, and the solo from the original (the only musical bit that survived the cover) this has to be one of their best non-album tracks.
7bitarcade - Archive 